The command chair, also referred to as the captain's chair, is the most important position on board a starshipbridge. This seat, as its alternate name implies, is occupied by the captain of the vessel, or the officer who commands the vessel in the captain's absence. The ship's duty officer sits on the command chair at all times and monitors all operations on the bridge. The chair is usually equipped with companels and other related equipment. In addition, some versions can swivel, so the commanding officer can easily turn to face any relevant station.

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NX class

The right arm of the command chair on the bridge of the NX-classEnterprise included a control panel that could flip up at the touch of a control. Additionally, both arms of the chair included at least one companel. An adjustable panel built into the chair's left arm had the additional capacity of being able to fire spatial torpedoes from the starship. (ENT: "Fight or Flight", "Cold Front")

When EnsignTravis Mayweather assumed temporary command of Enterprise later that year, he was slightly hesitant to accept advice, from Ensign Hoshi Sato, that he occupy the command chair rather than his typical position at the helm. Once he moved to the captain's chair, Mayweather remarked, "The bridge looks a lot different from here." (ENT: "Cold Front")

In 2154, Captain Erika Hernandez showed Captain Archer the bridge of her ship, the second NX class starship, Columbia. Archer suggested the installation of a lumbar support in Columbia's command chair, as Hernandez would probably be spending a lot of time in the chair. (ENT: "Home") When Enterprise was refitted following the Xindi mission, one of the additions was a completely redesigned captain's chair, which Commander Tucker joked "came with everything but its own protein resequencer". (ENT: "Borderland")

The full backrest used for the Lexington helped visually distinguish the bridges between that ship and the Enterprise. The same full backrest was used on the set re-dress of the Bridge for the mirror universeISS Enterprise in the episode TOS: "Mirror, Mirror".

During the early 2270s, Constitution-class starships went through a refit. The command chair of Captain James T. Kirk was upgraded with not only a full back support, including an automatically adjustable headrest, but also a safety restraint mechanism that allowed the armrests to hold down the occupant during turbulence and red alert. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

By 2365, the command chair on the Enterprise-D had been upgraded to a newer version with padded armrests and the replacement of the hidden control panels with permanently open ones. This chair remained on the bridge until the ship's destruction in 2371. (TNG: "The Child"; Star Trek Generations)

The script of "Encounter at Farpoint" does not specify that the controls on the left arm of the chair are hidden beneath a panel, although Picard opens a panel on the chair's left arm in the final version of the episode.

The command chair of the Enterprise-E was designed by illustrator John Eaves, who placed the chair a few inches above all the others on the starship's bridge in order to accentuate the captain's position, focusing the bridge design on him. (Star Trek: Communicator issue #110, p. 22)

A deleted scene showing seatbelts on the command chair of the Enterprise-E

The NX-class command chair was the only chair on the NX-class bridge that was not bought from an Italian showroom. Set decorator James Mees commented, "I bought the seat itself at a boating and marine supplier. I recovered it in leathers in our colors and some different things like that, and then the rest of the chair we built from scratch; there's a retractable arm and a retractable video screen in it, and the base lights up and it completely swivels. It's quite exciting!" The chair's armrests and base were built specially. To help Mees finalize the details, senior illustrator John Eaves drew some sketches of the chair. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 3, Issue 3, pp. 85 & 86) Ultimately, the NX command chair featured the smallest screen of all the plasma screens on the NX class bridge, measuring seven inches across. For ENT: "Singularity", a potential updated version of the NX class command chair – an over-planned chair supposedly designed by the obsessive Trip – was based on a design by John Eaves. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 144, pp. 28 & 30)

Early in the run of Star Trek: Enterprise, the opportunity to sit in the NX-class command chair proved to be a temptation to the series' regular cast. "I think pretty much everybody has [sat in it], yeah," laughed Scott Bakula, shortly after working on the first several episodes. "We joke about it. I come in and Anthony [Montgomery] will be sitting in my chair: 'What are you doing?' We're laughing about it. He jumps up." Concerning the regard that the series regulars in general had for the chair, Bakula went on to conclude, "We're having a lot of fun with it." (Star Trek Monthly issue 84, p. 32)

As shown in the blooper reel on the Star Trek DVD and Blu-ray, the captain's chair is not actually bolted onto the floor, as Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine accidentally knocked it over while filming Spock's attack on Kirk.

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